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EU pilots AI lie detectors at airports in Hungary, Latvia, and Greece

In November 2018, tests began of the €4.5 million iBorderCtrl project, which saw AI-powered lie detectors installed at airports in Hungary, Latvia, and Greece to question passengers travelling from outside the EU. The AI questioner was set to ask each passenger to confirm their name, age, and date of birth, and then query them about the purpose of their trip and who is paying for it. If the AI believes the person is lying, it is designed to change its tone of voice to become "more skeptical" before referring the passenger to a human guard, while allowing through passengers it judges honest. During the trial, passengers must give consent to participate. Critics noted the high error rates associated with traditional lie detectors, the small sample (32) on which the software had been tested, the bias built into existing facial recognition algorithms, and the 85% success rate the project scientists said they were hoping to achieve.